The Local Village, Isla Plana

The village name means “flat island”, and it lies a mile along the road from the campsite. It’s slightly longer by a much more scenic route via the beach. This way, you take a path alongside a rambla, a dry ravine, that runs down to the sea, and then walk along the beach. There is a path on both sides of the rambla, fairly close to the edge. Only after studying the photo underneath, do you realise how undercut the edge is. It’s a good 30 feet drop, so don’t jump about on the path.

At the end of the rambla a wooden stairs leads to the beach itself. We’re heading for the cluster of buildings in the distance.

20 minutes later we’re in the village, on the prom, and looking at some excavated Roman remains, apparently kilns. The flat island, after which the village is named, is in the background.

The most interesting structure in the village, and the one we come to next, is the old bath house: Los Banos de la Marrana. These were public baths opened in 1901, using water from hot thermal springs that had been on site for centuries.The baths fell into disuse in the 1950’s and are not now accessible inside, although on past visits we were able to enter and view the sad decay and graffiti. The exterior gives a much more satisfactory and picturesque appearance.

On a small headland is the church, the Ermita de Nuestra Senora del Carmen, patron saint of the sea. It was planned in 1928 but only built in 1960, so is relatively new. 

The church address is, strangely, Calle Elefante, Elephant Street, so could Hannibal have perhaps passed this way, maybe to take a bath.

The next photo shows our usual destination: the Pensionista. Originally set up as an old folks social venue, it’s now open to all as a very reasonably priced café. The chairs and tables sprawl all over the front under the palm trees so there’s a lovely view of the coast and the church thrown in.

Isla Plana has plenty of small shops and a small supermarket, so we don’t need to go far for top-up shopping. Now it’s back down the beach to our caravan home to enjoy another exceptional evening light.

The Walking Group

Once a week the group walks, generally starting a short car ride from the campsite. Jan and Maryon, a Dutch couple who live on site, are the organisers. It’s always a 10:30 am start, on the dot: latecomers are reprimanded!

We’re all on time, so no lines or detentions today, and drive to the start of a circular walk in the local hills about 10 miles away. Parking up at the bottom of the track, we set off. Parking is generally easy in Spain outside of the cities as there is so much unfenced scrub land available. We’re taking an early breather here, having just ascended a steep gradient.

Onwards and upwards on todays excellent path, a well maintained dirt road as can be seen from the photo above. Often our walks take us on ancient donkey tracks; however, as there aren’t too many ancient donkeys around these days, these routes are often crumbling in disrepair.

Looking down at this early stage in the walk it’s noticeable how green parts of the countryside are. In spite of the low annual rainfall in this area, the winter showers have greened up the flowers, shrubs and weeds.

It’s worth pointing out that the white bits in the picture are plastic greenhouses. They are everywhere in this region and used for forcing crops of strawberries, cucumbers, peppers and, above all, tomatoes. Higher up in the walk, the landscape takes on the arid appearance typical of southern Spain.

Now we’ve reached the highest point, still on good unmetalled roads, with a distant panorama as the air is so clear.

The roads are built on firm stone foundations and surfaced with compacted stone chippings, thereby easy to maintain. In the UK, we’ve always looked down on these as primitive, inferior carriageways. However, for local roads where speed and low traffic volume apply, would this form of construction not be preferable to our deeply potholed tarmac roads which cost a fortune to repair, money which councils say they haven’t got?  

Looking next at the panorama rather than our group, the sea is clearly visible about 10 miles away. No prizes for spotting the tomato greenhouses in the distance. Our road yet to travel is also visible on the left-hand hill.

The road enables access for people living in these hills, generally in smallholdings like the one beneath. The groups of buildings always look higgledy-piggley and poorly looked after, but maybe that’s of secondary importance to trying to scratch a living from this parched land. 

One further delight at this time of the year is the blossoming of the fruit trees. We guessed that this one was a cherry.

Back to the cars, and a coffee (or beer) stop on the way back: anothersplendid walk in lovely weather even if the wind had a cold edge to it.

Spain & France Spring 2018

Start: Monday 5th March

Snow and forecast high winds delayed our departure by four days, but then the journey proved quite straightforward . With 1,500 miles to travel we drove for three consecutive days through France to reach northern Spain, and then took a few days breather at a Dutch-owned site where we’ve stayed before. Set in cork oak country, it offers pleasant walks with the backdrop of the Pyrenees foothills.

The cork oaks themselves are harvested about every seven years by stripping the cork bark. This tree shows the line of the last stripping about 2/3 of the way up the main trunk.

We gathered a few pieces of discarded bark to take back with us, remembering this time to first knock the bugs out. The last occasion we filled the car with cork pieces from whence armies of insects emerged and colonised the car.
So onwards towards our final destination, Camping Los Madriles, 10 miles from the city of Cartagena in Murcia. The campsite looked as good as ever, and we were fortunate enough to take over a prime pitch from our friends Stan and Ela who were leaving. This is the view from our caravan window.

A short walk takes us from the site to the sea and walks on good paths for several miles in either direction. This is the same scene as from the caravan window but from the coast track.

At the side of the site is a rambla, a dry river bed, that is used as a dirt road for access. The lush vegetation, supported by the occasional deluge that funnels through the rambla, contrasts with the stark hills behind. This is the driest part of Spain with about 8 inches (20 cms) of rain a year.

The rambla runs for around 5 miles and supports large numbers of birds that live in the improved habitat. It’s a really scenic walk, one of our favourites, where we can bird-watch as well as enjoy the surroundings.

In the few days since arriving we have met many campers we know from past visits. All things considered, we look forward to a pleasant couple of months here.